Chase Family Collection: Limited Christmas Edition

by Lauren Royal

  “But he tried.” Rose’s gaze was much too piercing for Violet’s comfort. “Or he kissed you earlier, didn’t he? At the ball. Or later, when he saw you to the door.”

  Violet looked away.

  “Or both!” Rose concluded. “I knew it!”

  Lily laid a graceful hand on the white cotton that covered her chest. “Goodness.” A theatrical sigh escaped her lips. “How did it feel?”

  “I never said he kissed me.”

  Her two very different sisters fixed her with matching, demanding glares. Rose spoke for both. “Let’s hear it, Violet.”

  “Oh, all right.” Violet crossed her legs and leaned forward conspiratorially. “It was very nice.”

  “Nice?” Rose folded her arms.

  “It was more than nice. It was wonderful.” Warming to her subject, Violet’s voice gentled. “The most amazing feeling. It made my knees weak, and my head seem to spin, and when he touched his tongue to—”

  “Violet!” her sisters interrupted together.

  Even Rose looked scandalized.

  “Well, you did ask.” Violet swallowed hard, wondering how she could have shared such a thing.

  “Gemini.” Rose fanned herself with a hand. “I must find someone to kiss. Tomorrow.”

  Violet reached out and caught her wrist. “No, you won’t. You must care for someone before you kiss him.”

  Lily’s eyes softened to a hazy blue. “Oh, Violet, that’s so romantic.”

  That was taking things a bit too far. “It’s over now. We’re going home tomorrow, and he’s staying here to meet with his solicitor. And even after he returns to Lakefield, Jewel has gone home, so there’s no longer any reason for me to visit.”

  “But you care for him. You just said as much. And since he kissed you, he’ll be asking you to wed him, will he not?”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Lily. Men don’t put such store behind a kiss. The Master-piece says a woman is truly more moist than a man.”

  Lily frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m not sure. But he won’t be asking me to marry him.”

  “But if he did?” Rose pressed. “That would be wonderful, wouldn’t it?”

  “No,” Violet said flatly. “If he’s making a show of courting me, you can be certain it’s because of my inheritance. And I won’t marry for anything less than true love.”

  “But Violet.” Concern filled Lily’s earnest gaze. “You must care. Or you wouldn’t have kissed him. You said a woman must care for a man before she—”

  “I’m not looking for one-sided love, Lily. If I cannot have a love like Mum’s, then I’d rather live life on my own.” She turned to Rose. “And you can stop worrying—I don’t care if you marry before me. I don’t care if I marry at all.” And because that suddenly wasn’t true, she made a big show of yawning. “It’s very late. I have much to tell you both about the ball, and especially Mr. Locke, but it will have to wait until morning.”

  Lily rose and kissed her softly on the cheek. “I would love to hear it all, Violet.”

  Rose’s kiss wasn’t nearly as sweet. “I don’t care about Mr. Locke,” she said, “but you should marry Lord Lakefield.”

  Long after her sisters had left, Violet lay awake, her mind and heart in turmoil.

  Thirty-Six

  LAKEFIELD HOUSE was quiet. Too quiet.

  Hilda and Harry knew better than to disturb Ford when he was working, but Jewel had never quite mastered that bit of etiquette. Now Ford found his gaze straying toward the door, waiting for his niece to burst through, a grin on her heart-shaped face and a ribbon clenched in her fist.

  Or an insect. One never quite knew what to expect from Lady Jewel.

  But the one thing he hadn’t expected was to feel this sudden loneliness. Emptiness. Bloody hell, he missed her.

  Ford Chase missed a child.

  Whoever would have thought? Mere weeks ago he’d been sure that having a family was the last item on his list of priorities. Though he’d known he’d have children eventually, he’d never really envisioned them in his life. But now, instead of finishing his watch, he found himself daydreaming. A girl and a boy, like Jewel and Rowan. And a mother for them, of course.

  Violet would be perfect.

  Gears fell from his hands as that thought took root in his brain. He dropped to his knees to reach one that rolled beneath his workbench, then bumped his head as he came back up.

  Rubbing where it hurt, he sat on the floor to analyze when and how he had fallen in love with Violet Ashcroft.

  He’d always thought he wanted someone like Tabitha. Effervescent, confident, sophisticated, a lady whose looks stopped men in the street. Violet was none of those things. But she listened to his ideas and challenged him with her own.

  He’d never imagined a woman like Violet existed.

  Perhaps it was logical, after all, for a man like him to find himself attracted to a lady with Violet’s odd qualities.

  But it was illogical for him to pursue the matter. He couldn’t ask for Violet’s hand when his estate and finances were in such sad shape. The meeting with his solicitor had not gone well. There were bills to be paid and no funds to settle them.

  The man had presented two options. One, turn Lakefield into a working estate and see that it prospered. Two, sell the damned place. Only a small portion of the land was entailed. Selling the rest—including the house—would raise enough money to support Ford for years to come, allowing him to pursue his scientific interests.

  As a third son, Ford should never have had a title, and while he enjoyed that part of it well enough, he wasn’t cut out to be a landowner. True, he’d assisted his brother Jason with Cainewood’s never-ending responsibilities—he knew the ins and outs of running an estate. But that wasn’t the life he wanted.

  Working the land, caring for tenants, collecting rents. It was all so tedious and nonproductive. At the end of a typical peer’s life, one’s legacy was naught but more of the same passed down to an heir. Nothing new to contribute to knowledge and mankind.

  His life had always been in London with his experiments and the Royal Society.

  But now his heart was here.

  Agitated, he rose to his feet and tossed the gear into the mess on the table. What did it matter where his heart was? Regardless of how much Violet’s parents might seem to like him personally, they were unlikely to bless their daughter’s marriage to an impoverished viscount. Under normal circumstances, the fact that Violet came with a sizable inheritance as well as a dowry might mitigate the situation, but nothing about Violet was normal. Knowing her feelings about men marrying for money, he was sure he’d have a hell of a time convincing her he wasn’t after her fortune.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed them. It was hopeless. He might as well put her out of his mind. And he knew just how to go about that, too.

  For once he was happy that he seemed unable to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.

  He wanted to invent a watch with two hands. That was why he had come to Lakefield in the first place. Without Jewel to distract him, he ought to be able to achieve his goal at last.

  It was a good thing he’d taken time to analyze the situation, because these lofty romantic aspirations had nothing to do with his life. Nothing to do with his plans.

  He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and got to work.

  Thirty-Seven

  THE ASHCROFT girls rushed into the summerhouse and shut the door behind them. “Now,” Rose said, “where did we leave off?”

  Violet sat in their now customary spot with her sisters on either side. She opened the book, flipping pages. “We were reading about what should be eaten to induce erection.”

  Lily’s hands went to her cheeks. “I cannot believe we’re reading this.”

  “You can leave,” Rose said pointedly.

  Lily didn’t.

  Having found the correct passage, Violet cleared her throat. “‘The desire of coition, which fires the
imagination with unusual fancies, may soon inflame the appetite. Eat such meats as are of good juice, that nourish well, making the body lively and full of sap, to cause erection, as hens eggs, pheasants, wood-cocks, young pigeons, partridges, capons, almonds—’”

  “Almonds aren’t meat,” Lily interrupted.

  “Hush.” Rose leaned across Violet, narrowing her eyes at their hapless younger sister. “Do you want to learn what to feed your husband or not?”

  “Go on,” Lily said with a sigh.

  “All right, then.” Violet resumed reading. “‘Almonds, pine-nuts, raisins, currants, all strong wines, especially those made of the grapes of Italy. But erection is chiefly caused by parsnips, artichokes, asparagus…’”

  She paused, thinking of a plate piled high with asparagus in a piazza twinkling with lights. And later in the passage, when Ford had pressed against her, and she’d felt—

  Faith, the Master-piece was right.

  “Violet.” Looking concerned, Lily touched her hand. “Why did you stop?”

  Violet blinked. “No reason,” she said, her cheeks burning. “Sometimes my mind just wanders.”

  “Let me read instead.” Rose grabbed for the book.

  Violet held tight. “No.” To focus better on the words, she slipped off her spectacles and set them on her lap. “‘Asparagus, candied ginger—’”

  “Enough with the food,” Rose said. “We will never remember this long list, anyway. What comes after that?”

  Violet turned to the next chapter and read the title. “‘Of the Genitals of Women.’”

  Rose nodded. “That sounds good.”

  “Lily?” Violet looked to her youngest sister.

  Though Lily was red-faced, she nodded, too. “It sounds like something we should know.”

  “All right, then.” Having read this section already in the privacy of her room, she took a deep breath before sharing with her sisters. “‘Those parts that offer themselves to view at the bottom of the belly, the fissura magnaor with its labia or lips, the mons veneris, and the hair, are called by the general name pudenda.’”

  A frown creased Lily’s smooth young forehead. “These parts have names?”

  “Of course they do, you goose.” Rose leaned in closer. “Go on.”

  “‘The clitoris is a substance in the upper part of the division where the two wings concur, and is the seat of womanly pleasure, being like a yard—’”

  “A yard?” Lily asked.

  “That’s what they call a man’s…”

  “Oh. That.” Her blue eyes widened. “It’s not actually a yard, is it? I mean, when it’s—”

  “Erect?” Judging from the single breathy word, Rose seemed to be lacking her customary aplomb. “Good God, I hope not. It couldn’t be. It’s not really a yard, Violet, is it?”

  “Why do you think I would know?” But her face heated as she remembered feeling that hardness. “No, of course it isn’t,” she said as matter-of-factly as she could manage. “It wouldn’t fit if it were, would it? And it would show, don’t you think? When men just walked around? I’m certain it’s not a yard.”

  “Probably men call it that because they wish it were a yard,” Rose said dryly.

  Even Lily giggled at that.

  Violet blinked hard and continued reading. “‘The clitoris…being like a yard in situation, substance, composition and erection, growing sometimes out of the body an inch, but that never happens except through extreme lust.’”

  Rose harrumphed. “So a man gets a yard and we get an inch.”

  “Oh, Rose,” Violet groaned.

  “Keep reading,” Lily said.

  “All right.” Violet flashed Rose a look of warning. “‘By the neck of the womb is the channel which receives the yard like a sheath, and that it may be better dilated for the pleasure of procreation, in this concavity are diverse folds, wrinkled like an expanded rose.’”

  “A rose?” Rose harrumphed again. “That ‘concavity’ looks nothing like Father’s flowers.” When her sisters gaped at her, she bristled. “Well, it doesn’t. I’ve looked. With a mirror.” She narrowed her gaze. “Don’t tell me you haven’t.”

  Violet just cleared her throat. “‘The hymen, or claustrum virginale, is that which closes the neck of the womb relating to virginity, broken in the first copulation. And commonly, when broken in copulation, or by any other accident, a small quantity of blood flows from it, attended with some little pain.’”

  Silence descended on the summerhouse.

  “Little pain,” Lily whispered finally. “That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?”

  “I’m sure it’s not,” Violet said firmly.

  But they all took a deep breath in unison.

  “All right, then.” Violet turned the page. “Listen to this.” She swallowed. “‘There are many veins and arteries passing into the womb, dilated for its better taking hold of the yard, there being great heat required in such motions, which become more intense in the act of friction, and consumes a considerable quantity of moisture, which being expunged in the time of copulation, greatly delights the woman.’”

  “Greatly delights the woman,” Rose breathed. “Gemini. We have to get married. Soon.”

  Suddenly they heard a jaunty tune being hummed outside. “Oh, God!” Lily exclaimed. “It’s Mum!”

  Leaping up, she ran for the door and jerked it open, Rose at her heels. The two of them pushed through at the same time, all but stumbling over each other.

  “Good afternoon, Mum,” Rose said. “Come along, Lily. Father is waiting.”

  “For what?” Mum asked, frowning at Violet as her younger daughters practically trampled her and ran for the gardens.

  Shrugging, Violet snapped the book closed and set it face down on the bench. “What are you doing out here?”

  Unlike Father, Mum avoided the outdoors, especially on a nice, sunny day like this one. She worried for her creamy complexion. Now she was wearing a big straw hat and carrying a basket over her arm, filled with stale bread. “I thought I’d just take some air,” she said. “And feed the swans.”

  When Violet stood, her spectacles tumbled from her lap to the red-brick floor. She bent to retrieve them, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice the book on the bench. “Shall I come with you?”

  “That would be lovely.”

  She slipped the frames on her face as they crossed the wide, green lawn to the river. A multitude of daisies sprouted among the blades of grass; heaven forbid Joseph Ashcroft leave any part of his land free of flowers.

  Chrystabel bent to pick one as they went. She twirled the white and yellow posy in her fingers. “Is the book you were reading interesting?”

  Egad, she’d noticed.

  “It’s philosophy.” Well, it was. In a sense.

  “What is it called?”

  “Um…” Violet felt her face heat, but the title certainly wasn’t a giveaway. “Aristotle’s Master-piece.”

  Stepping onto the bridge, her mother threw her an arch look. “And is it?”

  Her heart stuttered. “Is it what?”

  “A masterpiece.”

  “Oh.” Halfway across the bridge, Violet stopped and turned to the rail. She focused out over the river. “It’s Aristotle, you know. I’m sure you’ve heard me jabber enough about him.” She reached into her mother’s basket and broke off a bit of bread, tossing it out to the lone swan nearby. “I don’t expect you’d find it very interesting.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  Violet wondered what her mother meant, especially considering the tone of her voice, but she didn’t want to ask. She had a feeling she was better off not knowing.

  More swans glided near, and Chrystabel tossed a few crumbs. “You miss him, don’t you?”

  Him. Mum had to mean Ford. But Violet had never admitted to any interest in him, so how could Mum know?

  “Miss whom?” she asked.

  “Lord Lakefield, of course. Don’t be coy, Violet. For weeks you saw him every
day, but now that Jewel is gone, you have no excuse to visit. I know you’re fond of him.”

  “He’s a nice man,” Violet said carefully.

  “You don’t allow a man to kiss you just because he’s nice.”

  Violet’s jaw dropped open. She closed it, along with her eyes, then opened them and turned to her mother. “Wherever did you get the idea he kissed me?”

  “One of your sisters.” Chrystabel held up a hand. “No, I won’t tell you which one, because it doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me! It was Rose, wasn’t it?”

  “I won’t be saying. Because it doesn’t matter. It’s acceptable to experiment. Do you imagine I never kissed your father before we married?”

  Despite her outrage, Violet had to bite back a smile. Mum had done more than kiss Father. Violet knew she’d been born impossibly “early”—the girls had calculated the dates years ago.

  But that was beside the point. “I’m not marrying him, Mum.”

  Below them, the swans squawked, and Chrystabel broke off more bread. “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, he hasn’t asked me. And for another, I wouldn’t agree if he did.”

  “Can you explain why?”

  “Why?” To avoid meeting her mother’s eyes, Violet took a hunk of bread and faced the graceful white birds. “Why should I? With or without my spectacles, I’m not blind. I know I’m no beauty. If he asked for my hand, it would only be to get my ten thousand pounds—God knows he needs it, as Rose has pointed out countless times. And I won’t marry for less than true love, Mum. I…I suspect marriage isn’t all it’s purported to be, anyway.”

  She wished she could still believe that with the fervor she once had. But she wasn’t quite so sure any longer, not since reading the Master-piece. Now, late at night, she lay in bed alone, wishing the feel of the sheets on her body were the feel of a man’s hands instead. Wondering if the sensations were as wonderful as the Master-piece claimed.

  And Ford’s kisses had done nothing to convince her differently.

  Great heat…in the act of friction…greatly delights the woman. Her very limited experience notwithstanding, she could believe it.